A Day With Mr Baggins
by Harlequin Sequins
Summary: Bilbo Baggins had finally admitted defeat when it came to understanding the peculiar behaviors of dwarves. Friendship, feelings, and an extra helping of AU.


author's note: i know, _i know. _i had to tweak a lot to make this work, but in the end i just couldn't resist. merry and pippin, i suppose, are decidedly older now that i've moved their birthdates back (it's currently 4 am and i just spent 5 hours writing this sooo...i honestly cannot remember how much older and now i'm wondering why i did and uh oh here i go i'm overthinking it), kili and fili survived the ordeal of the battle of the five armies and so did thorin, and bilbo is apparently not the kid-phobic bachelor you all thought him to be. anyway, i know this is probably the weirdest thing ever and you're all going to scoff at me (pshft, silly writer, what are merry and pippin doing in hobbit land? i honestly don't know so don't ask i just...feels), but...yeah. so. yeah.

obviously, i have to edit later...there's tense issues and grammar errors galore. but in the meantime. enjoy. if you can.

disclaimer - bilbo, merry, pippin, kili, thorin, and fili all belong to tolkien. i just love them to pieces and borrow them on occasion.

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Bilbo opened the door, curls quite disheveled and cheeks rather flushed. It was barely noon, and they had expected the master of the house to still be asleep when they arrived. Utterly surprised, Kili and Fili appraised their friend with some measure of concern.

"What's happened to you?" said Kili, barging in (not much has changed since the first moment he arrived, when he had wiped his boots clean on Bilbo's furniture).

"You look terrible." Fili finished, following his brother. The both of them remove their furs and coats and armor without ceremony, dropping the lot of it heavily on his mother's dowry box. Bilbo was entirely much too tired to protest and closed the door behind them without saying anything at all.

"You've stocked your pantry!" Kili's heavy boots resonated throughout the entire house. "Marvelous! I'm starved. Care for a biscuit, Fili?"

"Two." Replied the golden-haired dwarf, twisting the ends of his braided moustache. "And beer, if there's any."

The sounds of a thorough pillaging began to fill the corridor – jars dropped and shattered, glasses clinking, plates scraping against wooden frames. "Sorry! Hope that wasn't valuable…"

Bilbo could almost weep. With a sigh he brought his hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he felt a headache coming on. Fili was still shedding layers upon layers of clothes, golden hair splayed across his shoulders in intricate plaits. As he removed the braces from his arms, the concern he'd shown for the ragged-looking hobbit at the door resurfaced.

"You _were_ expecting us."

It was true, as much as he wished he could say otherwise. Only last week, he'd received word from Gandalf that the brothers would be passing through the Shire on their way to Eriador (official business on behalf of the King Under the Mountain). With a thrill that was now quite missing from what had been, only this morning, a very cheerful disposition, he had written to the brothers, begging their company on Tuesday next. This very day.

What ill timing! He'd already had his fill of youthful vigor for the day, having been on his poor tired feet since the bell rang this morning (a most inconvenient time as he was not accustomed to the early hour). And all before second breakfast, which he was certain he would have to go without as Kili continued to shamelessly rifle through his cupboards.

"Yes, of course," said Bilbo weakly. "It is only – that is, this morning – well, I might as well come out and say it. I was _ambushed_."

Kili's voice carried down the hall, shrill with excitement. "Did someone say ambush!?"

"Not that kind!" Bilbo replied, then looked around and lowered his voice to a strained, vibrating sort of whisper. "These foes are much fouler than orcs and trolls and goblins. They do not come with axes or swords, but with mischief."

Fili's bright eyes widened. "Is someone…troubling you?" His hand lingered over the throwing daggers still attached to his belt.

The deep thud of Kili's footsteps resumed, and they sounded much heavier as he carried what seemed to be the contents of the entire pantry in his arms. He had formed a tall, precarious heap of biscuits, scones, seed cakes, cold chicken and ham and sausages, and two flagons of dark beer sloshed atop the wobbly peak. "Something for you, Mr. Bilbo?"

Bilbo dismissed his offer with a wave of his hand. "No, thank you, I think a little tea might do me a world of good."

Crumbs sprayed out of his mouth as Kili, a little too keen on the idea of helping, hastened to the cozy little kitchen at the other end of the house. "I'll put the kettle on!"

"No!"

The eyes of the two others were on him immediately, question marks forming in the deep furrow of their brows. He hurried to explain, stumbling over words and half-phrases that did not quite excuse his terribly rude behavior. "It is only that….I have not built the fire yet! Yes, the hearth is cold, quite cold indeed. And temperamental too, yes. A mysterious thing, only I can seem to light the rusty old grate. Do leave it to me. I beg of you."

"And here I thought Uncle Thorin was strange about his fireplace," Fili remarked, tossing his braces on the pile he and his brother had made. "Looks as though he's rubbed off on poor Mr. Bilbo!"

"Whoops!" Kili's deep, barking laugh filtered in from what sounded like the kitchen room. "There go the scones."

Bilbo was all aflutter again, squeaking with panic as he raced through the breakfast room and the sunlit parlor to stop them from discovering what he'd been hiding there. "Please, don't go near that kitchen!"

"Well, well, well – what have we here?"

Huffing and puffing, he reached the doorway that led to the cold hearth and the small, comfortable table he'd had breakfasted at many times before. But it was entirely too late. The both of them were crouched over the pile of blankets where two tiny hobbit heads lay resting, bright like spun gold in the sunlight that spilled in from the window overhead.

It was almost a relief, to be found out. Perhaps, being such similar creatures to the naughty little devils, they would know the right tricks and amusements to distract them from his books and maps and precious, irreplaceable heirlooms. He'd turned out to be ill-equipped to handle them, ever the consummate, unadvised bachelor. Wherever he turned, there had been grubby little hands and grinning impish faces. They seemed to gravitate toward the most valuable trinkets in the room, mistaking them for playthings and running about the house with them in their arms. Bilbo would clamor after them, following the sound of wicked giggles and ghosts of footsteps, only to find that the trail had long since gone cold.

By the time they collapsed on the rug of the parlor, they had left a substantial amount of devastation in their wake. Two of his father's old maps, a vase, and a porcelain tobacco jar that had been in the family for years were damaged beyond repair. He had only just picked up the place before the bell at the door rang.

"Why, Mr. Bilbo. You never told us you had wee little ones."

"What fun!" Kili grinned, dark eyes flitting between his brother and Bilbo. "When they wake, we must play a game. What say you, Mr. Bilbo? I know a good deal of dwarf games - "

"No games!"

"A song by the fire?"

"No songs, no music – not a sound!"

Kili paused, his mouth a thin, determined line. "…A staring contest then?" And he proudly added, "I'm good at those. Beaten Fili dozens of times."

Fili ignored his brother, still too interested in the squashed, chubby little creatures huddled on the floor. "How come we didn't meet them when we first came?"

"Meet them…? Oh, dear heavens no. They're not mine, I assure you. Merely…borrowed! For the day, that is."

Fili inclined his head. "If they are not yours…who do they belong to?"

"A cousin, once or twice or…three times removed. It is a very complicated and bothersome business, trying to remember how closely or distantly related we are. All I know is we share an ancestor or two and that is reason enough, apparently, for these two menaces to be here!"

Kili frowned. "They don't seem menacing."

"Not at all. They pale in comparison to our menacing nature."

"Yes, I agree with Fili," Kili nodded approvingly. "We are much more menacing."

"If anything, I'd say they were…charming," Fili added, resting his hands on his knees. "Look at the nose on that one! Round like a button!"

"And those cheeks! Red as a girl's!"

"Do they have names?"

Bilbo frowned, mouth hanging open in a very unseemly display. "Names? Well of course they have names!"

"Are they…secret?" Kili asked.

"I should hope not, or else the whole of Buckland is in on it…and I'm sure, with all the shouting of them I did this morning, more than half of Hobbiton as well."

They stared pointedly at Bilbo until at once it dawned on him that they were inquiring after the names of the children; the flush in his cheeks deepened to a frightful shade of vermillion once he realized his folly. "Oh, right! Pardon my manners – Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took, formally. My second or third cousins, once or twice removed I think – oh bother it, they are cousins, and that is explanation enough I'm sure. They prefer to be called Merry and Pippin, if it's all the same to you."

Fili smirked. "I do wonder…why did you not tell us they were here?"

"Yes," said Kili, piping in. "I wonder too. You weren't ashamed of us, were you Bilbo?"

"Ashamed? Not at all! I didn't want you to wake them - they only just settled down for their nap. Collapsed, more like it. One moment I'm chasing them from room to room, putting everything breakable out of arm's reach, and then I find them sleeping on the rug in front of the fire place. It was a good thing, too. I was nearly at my wit's end."

Kili looked completely scandalized. "Why did you not tell them a story?"

"A story would've done the trick," Fili agreed.

"And you've got plenty of those, haven't you? Trolls and goblins and orcs - "

"No, no, no that wouldn't do at all! Why, their mothers would be quite put out if they learned I had ruined them with talk of my escapades. Scare them out of their wits, it would."

This was all very strange to the brothers, who had grown up with the tales of their Uncle Thorin's run in with Azog the Defiler. "Scare them? It would not entertain them?"

"Not at all! I daresay, they wouldn't sleep for weeks. Even the one about the three trolls who nearly ate us...it'd spook them for sure."

"Why, that's nothing! Not even a drop of blood spilt that day…might even say it'd be a little slow for lads their age," Fili laughed, clapping Bilbo on the back. "Besides, a good yarn full of gore and glory would do them good."

"We were raised on them!" Said Kili. "And look how we turned out."

Bilbo hadn't the heart to tell them that they were poor examples of the effects those gruesome stories had on children. In all honesty, perhaps they could have done without such violent images floating around in their young, vulnerable heads. What a strange folk, these dwarves – raising their little ones on such grisly chronicles! If he had heard even a word of them in his more impressionable days, he would have certainly turned white as a ghost and run screaming from the room.

Then again, what did he know of little ones? His only experience with them stemmed from his own quiet upbringings, when he was holed up in the sheltered comforts of Bag End. The headache was returning; he held the bridge of his nose, hoping he could simply will it away.

"Yes, well – we shall decide on that later. For now…let us go outside and enjoy the sunshine. I assure you, once they waken, we will be too busy running after them to take a breath! Come, come…how fares the King Under the Mountain?"

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For a long time, they talked of the things that passed and things yet to come. They sat in the garden, where the peonies and the snapdragons and the begonias had begun to blossom, and the air was filled with a new and sweet perfume. No sooner had they become situated, the three of them took out their pipes and lit a fire in the bowl. It was afternoon, and every family in the whole of the Shire was sitting down to tea. Bilbo could imagine their topics of conversation, ranging from the fairness of the weather to the latest circulation of gossip that was being passed around the marketplace. The shape of a smile curled around the stem of his pipe; here he was, sitting in the garden with two very significant and decidedly silly dwarves. Smoking his pipe with the heirs to the line of Durin! A year ago, he would have been content to take tea by himself, sitting at the parlor window. Now he could not look outside without yearning for a new adventure to find him.

The dwarves smoked and studied the familiar surroundings while they talked. Bilbo had almost forgotten what merry company they made, telling of their restored home and their obligations as the highly esteemed sister-sons to the King. Fili was next in line for it, and often Thorin would summon him to listen in on council meetings with diplomats from the furthest corners of the world. Always, when he called for him, Fili was usually met by thinly veiled solicitations for favors - always in a manner of a fatherly, yet decidedly gruff affection.

"It's not always council meetings– sometimes, he wishes to have someone to practice his sword with, so he can keep his skills sharp," Fili tells him. "Or to keep him company as he observes the warriors during training. You see, Bilbo…my uncle is many things. But subtle he is not."

Even Kili could attest to his Uncle's not so subtle methods of grooming Fili to inherit the throne. There was no envy or wistfulness in his voice as he spoke of such things, only a blind acceptance of it all, knowing it was how things were and that there was no reason for them to change. He, too, was in line for it, and someday perhaps Fili would pass his knowledge down to him. It was an unbroken thread, fragile yet steadfast, one that would continue on long after Fili and Kili passed on to the Undying Lands beyond.

"Very Important Dwarves do not need subtlety." Said Kili, traces of a smile lingering in the corners of his mouth. "Only a voice that carries so that everyone may hear him."

"Of course. A Very Important Dwarf such as him should not have to tire himself by repeating everything he says – because it is all important, and it should all be heard the first time."

"And Uncle is a very special kind of Important Dwarf, being King Under the Mountain."

"That makes everything he says three times as important."

"And us three times as obligated to listen."

They both chuckled to themselves, and Bilbo felt as though he was intruding on some intimate joke between the two. It was an awkwardness that passed quickly as the they started to blow smoke rings (a past-time, it was widely known, that Bilbo quite enjoyed).

He watched as an air of competition began to develop between them. Fili's were much bigger and more striking against the forget-me-not sky behind them, upstaging the thin and wispy rings belonging to his younger brother.

In response, Kili filled his mouth to the brim with smoke, carefully molding the figure of his ring. Bilbo had to admit, as it drifted far above their heads, that it was quite impressive. Kili thought so too, and he looked at his brother with an unmistakable smugness.

"Well done," said Fili, nodding his head. "But I wonder, can you do this?"

Kili watched, with growing vexation, as Fili took a long draft of his pipe. He twisted his mouth into strange and ungainly , darkening the soft shadows beneath his cheekbones until they glared black against his fair skin. It seemed a very long time that they sat there, watching Fili perfect the figure of his smoke ring, until at last he let loose the most glorious specimen Bilbo had ever laid eyes on. He gasped audibly, and even Kili could not hide the look of wonder that bled into his face. It was, without a doubt, perfection.

And Fili knew it too. He turned, flaunting his victory, and a small glimmer of pride seemed to catch the light in his eyes.

Kili, sulking, did not look at him. "You are insufferable."

"Consider it a life lesson," Fili replied. "Never enter into a challenge without knowing the strengths of your opponent. Mine just happen to be superior to yours."

"That's not true," said Kili, and he looked at Bilbo to make sure he didn't believe it. "It's not. He's been taking lessons from Gandalf."

Suddenly, Fili straightened, his ears moving as they picked up a sound. "Do you…hear that?"

The two others with him frowned, listening, and in a moment Kili's ears were twitching as well. "Yes...I think I do. It almost sounds like…"

Fili's eyes disappeared under the shadow of his furrowed brow. "Chafing. Metal…or something."

It occurred to both of them at the same time, their eyes bulging in their sockets. "Our weapons!" They cried in unison, dropping their pipes behind them as they fled the garden. Bilbo, realizing that the little ones had woken and found the dwarves' things on his mother's dowry box, was even quicker to abandon his pipe and hasten inside.

The two of them were already gathering their things, Fili looking around the foyer for a place to stash them where they wouldn't be within reach.

"The cellar, perhaps? It's the only safe place in the house – they don't like how dark and damp it is."

"That'll do." Fili took the armaments from his brother. Meanwhile, Kili was staring openly at the two sleepy little faces, where there were two pair of eyes clearly staring back at him.

Merry and Pippin were actually very similar looking when it came to the more general aspects of appearance – golden curls framing plump apple cheeks, round eyes alike in color, mouths as pink as rose petals. They were at that tender age, when their eyes took up most of the room in their face, and now they appeared even wider as they gawked openly at the dwarf prince.

Pippin, the less reserved of the two, spoke first (though it was safe to say that Merry was still the very opposite of timid). "You're not a hobbit…"

"No," Kili said, crossing his arms over his bare tunic. "_You're_ a hobbit."

"I know." Pippin scowled.

Merry seemed to remember himself, and Bilbo could only guess curiosity won out over wariness. "I'm a hobbit too."

Fili returned from the cellar, his boots heavy against the wooded floors. Merry and Pippin staggered backward a little as he came in, tall and imposing compared to their small stature, and Pippin grabbed Merry's arm out of force of habit.

"Merry," he whispered to his cousin. "I think he might eat us."

"Should we run?" Merry whispered back.

"Boys, boys, come now. They're not going to eat you."

"Of course not." Fili smirked. "You're much too young to be eaten yet."

Kili's lip curled inward as he fought to stifle a laugh. After a moment, during which Bilbo's expression of horror deepened, he said, "Way too young. We like our hobbit meat tough, if we can get it."

They could not contain their mirth any longer, and burst out into a bout of raucous laughter – entirely unaware of the pallor that took hold of those two terrified little faces before them. Bilbo could only imagine, as he covered his face with his hands and shook his head in disbelief (oh why, why was this happening to him? What could he have done to deserve such torment!), how the dwarves' strident laughter must have sounded to the boys. Being so young, they relied heavily on imagination instead of logic in situations such as these, and imagination had a tendency to blow simple things very much out of proportion.

This was the case, and they looked up at the towering creatures as if they were monsters and not the harmless pranksters Bilbo knew them to be. Tears welled up in their large eyes. Their lips began to quiver like bowstrings. Soon, the room was filled with the most melancholy sound Fili and Kili had ever had the displeasure of hearing – two hobbit children weeping desperately, petrified in their state of terror.

The both of them bent down at once, to seem less daunting in comparison to their size.

"Don't cry!" Said Kili, offering a handkerchief to Pippin as he mopped his face with trembling hands. "We were only joking!"

"Nothing to fear, little ones…" Fili assuaged them. "We only eat everything that does not stand on two legs."

"Where did you get that handkerchief, Kili?"

"I found it."

"You did not happen to find it here, in this very house, did you?"

With a half-hearted shrug, he openly admitted guilt. "I was going to give it back, Mr. Bilbo. Honest."

Upon being shooed from the presence of the distressed little hobbits (by a rather exasperated Bilbo), Fili and Kili passed through the parlor as they made their way into the kitchen. After all, they had not eaten every last morsel in the house just yet, and it was very likely that they couldn't comfortably leave without doing so.

Bilbo waited until they had gone out of earshot, though he could hear their rowdy voices in the next room. He then sunk down to the level of the two boys, taking the handkerchief out of Pippin's unsteady hands and gently wiping away the remaining tears on their blotchy cheeks. "They do that often…" He said. "I promise you'll get used to it."

"Cousin Bilbo." Merry hiccupped, eyes still watering. "They're scary."

"I don't like them."

"Don't be silly," Bilbo said. "You hardly know them."

"They're going to eat us!" Pippin cried.

"It was an ill-favored joke, I agree. Do promise me something, won't you boys?"

They nodded as Bilbo took one hand from each of them, watching the pallor fade out of their soft round faces. "Give them a chance. I think you will get on splendidly, once you get to know them."

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The day was passing more quickly now. Overhead, the sun had slipped quietly across the threshold of early afternoon, and the light had changed from pale yellow white to a warm and earthy gold. Bilbo was sitting by the window, mourning the fact that he had not only skipped second breakfast, elevenies and afternoon tea, but would also be forgoing his supper as well. His stomach grumbled almost petulantly, as if it did not want to think about such discomforts as skipping so many meals. With a sigh, he let his chin sink into his hands, watching the shadows lengthen across his neatly trimmed lawn. The dwarves would likely stay the night. But if he had any luck left in the world, Merry and Pippin would be leaving very soon.

In the parlor, Fili and Kili were endeavoring to entertain their wide-eyed counterparts in the only way they knew how – weapons. He could hear them as they explained the names and uses of each weapon to them, its advantages and disadvantages, and if it were more suitable for hand-to-hand or long-range combat. Their voices were low, but even from his post at the kitchen window, Bilbo could hear the thrill running like a current through their long-winded descriptions. He couldn't know for sure the reactions of the little ones, whether they would be bored by their endless chatter, or terrified that the dwarves still intended to eat them. With one last glance out the window (for good measure, of course), he wandered into the parlor, where the fire was now roaring in the hearth.

Bilbo clapped a hand over his mouth, to avoid interrupting what was quite the comical scene. Granted, it should not have been funny to him, as the looks on Merry and Pippin's faces were pale as a slow-building panic drained them of color. They appeared as though they were sitting on springs, ready to bound out of the room if the dwarves made any indication of movement toward them. Perhaps what was so humorous was the fact that Fili and Kili were completely unaware of the effect they had on the tiny hobbits, sitting cross-legged and wide-eyed in front of them at what they must have deemed a comfortable distance. They were caught up in their treasures, axes and swords and daggers and bows scattered around them in half-circles and clusters. His parlor room had become an armory, its wardens lounging on the floor in brown and green tunics and mud-stained boots.

Yes, he'd decided it was not so horrible for him to have choked back that laugh. Anyone would have admitted, openly, that one could not often boast of witnessing a spectacle such as this.

"Bilbo! Where'd you wander off to?"

"It seems like you've been gone for hours."

"Slipped off for a moment to the kitchen. I expect the boys will be returned to their mothers soon." Bilbo replied, sinking down in the armchair nearest to the hearth. As stealthily as they could, Merry and Pippin moved to sit behind Bilbo's ankles, peering out at the strange creatures that were so enraptured with their implements of death and destruction.

Kili's face fell. "So soon?"

To which Fili added. "We haven't told them any stories yet."

"No. No stories. I'm afraid not. You have already scared them enough with your talk of eating them." Bilbo paused as he felt them moving at his feet. "I think any of your ghastly stories would render them petrified."

"Please, Bilbo?"

"Just one?"

"We have a good one too."

"Just a piece of dwarf-lore…"

"And not much blood! If any at all."

"In fact," Fili said, nudging his brother. "It's a love story."

Bilbo straightened at this, and he was certain they'd caught the attention of the little ones at his feet. "A love story you say?"

Kili appeared to be thoroughly confused at first, but he seemed to come to some sort of epiphany as Fili cast a scathing sideways glance in his direction. "Yup, it's a good one too. Thorin's favorite. He tells it at feasts all the time."

"Well, that doesn't seem so bad…I suppose, if it's harmless, and has absolutely no blood in it…"

"None whatsoever," Fili assured him.

"Not a drop!" Kili added, for good measure.

Bilbo nodded his head, trying to hide his own eagerness from the dwarves. He did not want to come off as irresponsible, especially in the company of those who did not know the meaning of the word. It had come to his attention that he was the only sensible creature in the room, surrounded by children of all shapes and sizes and, admittedly…races. Old and wise as they seemed, and as ferocious as they were in battle, Fili and Kili were no wiser than the little boys cowering at his feet. In dwarf years, they were practically children themselves, caught in that in-between stage where they were no longer infants but still not quite men either.

He felt inclined to look after them as much as he looked after Merry and Pippin, an ambition he could hardly explain even to himself.

"All right, then. Go ahead and tell your tale."

"Yes, Fili…" Said the younger brother. "Tell us _your _tale."

Fili cleared his throat, straightening his shoulders so as to embody the look and stature of a storyteller (he could never be as good at it as his mother, but perhaps he could at least emulate her skill in weaving tapestries of lore and fiction seamlessly together). "Long ago, in an age when there was no King Under the Mountain, and therefore no kingdoms embedded deep in the heart of noble Erebor, the dwarves were a nomadic people. They lived off the land, drifting here and there, laying no roots in the earth and having no home that they could call their own. One such dwarf, Gimkin, was stout and strong and wore braids in his beard and hair. For days he had led his small clan across the foothills of the mountain, searching for a suitable place for his family to rest. At last, they arrived at the outskirts of a settlement, and creatures he soon learned were very similar to hobbits were residing there.

The very same day they arrived in the territory, as they were preparing their lodgings and food and good drink by the fire, this dwarf was sent to the river to fetch clean water for washing. He took his empty pail to the edge of the river nearby, and as he walked he heard a voice on the air. So lovely was this voice, rising high above the rush of the river at his feet, that tears filled his eyes. Dropping his pail, and leaving his clan behind, he searched for the one who belonged to that voice. Closer and closer he came, until he stumbled upon a maid who stood at the river's edge, washing her hair in the icy current. He called out to her, but she ran, disappearing into the trees which grew on the banks of that river. Desperate, he searched for her for weeks, determined he was in love with the maid whom he'd heard singing by the stream, and would have her for his own one way or another. He never returned to his clan, having left them behind in his pursuit of the maid. Upon his return much later, when all hopes of winning her had failed him, he found the camp deserted – they had moved on long ago, believing him dead.

Soon, he came to realize that his methods of wooing the maid were ineffective. He had already resolved to win her heart at any cost, as she had snared his on that fateful day that was now so many months passed. Gimkin was a poor sight, so gaunt and pale from his tireless pursuits, his beard a red bundle of tangles hanging limply over his breast. He had barely eaten, and had even less rest, but still he was determined – such was the passion and ambition of his nature. He would have her, that maid by the stream. And as he looked up at the pale blue peaks gleaming high above the withered grasslands , it came to him, an idea – he had long since heard stories, of wanderers who went under the mountain and came out with jewels, treasures of untold value and beauty. And so he journeyed to the mountain, the axe at his side to aid him on his long and weary voyage.

When he entered the catacombs, it was a dark and lonely place – sleeping, waiting, utterly silent. He seemed the only living creature in the world as he trudged through them, his footsteps like thunder against the quiet of the gloom. And in this age, so long ago, he was – for nothing but the dormant things of the earth slumbered there, nestled in the bowels of the mountain deep below his boots.

Three days into his march, he saw it – a glimmer at the end of the tunnel. As he approached, it became a soft glow, so pure and bright against the darkness. When he came to the wall, he saw that it was a diamond embedded in the dark stone, a jewel as large as his fist. It would take days for him to dig it out, so deeply entrenched it was, but at last when it came free, he was filled with the desire to keep it for himself, all vestiges of his love for the maid by the stream gone out of him. And so he kept it, even as he went out into the world again, changed with new ambition.

Not long after, he took a wife and inherited her family, and he showed them the jewel that he had found in the caverns of the lonely mountain. All of them were ensnared no sooner did they look upon it, and thereafter, when he departed with his wife for the mountain once more, her family followed them. They carved for themselves a life in the darkness, and generation after generation built upon their humble foundations. The sun they traded for the light of the jewels that glowed softly within the cavern walls. They called it Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, and not long after, the first King Under the Mountain was born."

When Fili had finished, his brother bent his head, and at first Bilbo thought he might have been overwhelmed by Fili's telling of the ancient lore. He, himself, was enchanted, simple as the story was. "Why, Fili…I never knew you were so gifted in the art of storytelling."

"Our mother, Dis, is much better," Fili admitted, and Bilbo began to wonder why it was that he seemed to be suppressing a smile. "If she had told it, I'm certain you would have wept at the sheer beauty of her rendition."

Kili's head remained bowed even as his shoulders began to shake. "There, there, Kili," Fili comforted him, clouting his brother's back with an open fist. "Have your cry out and be done with it. It's just a story!"

"I know." Kili croaked, his dark, plaited hair hiding his face. "Even when you tell it, it's a wonderful story."

"Aye, that it is," replied his brother.

Bilbo had a sinking feeling, but he knew better than to ask.

Luckily for him, Pippin asked in his stead. "Master dwarf, is the story true?"

Kili burst out laughing. The ruse was shattered.

To his innocent question, Fili shook his head slowly in reply. "No, little one. I made it all up on the spot."

Bilbo rolled his eyes as Kili flopped roughly onto his back, holding his ribs as he wheezed and gasped for breath. "You…oh Mr. Bilbo, you should have seen your face!" He chortled. "You believed every word of it!"

"Not bad for a mediocre storyteller, eh, Mr. Bilbo?"

Fili seemed proud, though Bilbo could hardly say why.

As of that moment, he'd formally admitted defeat when it came to understanding the peculiar behaviors of dwarves.

.

.

.


End file.
